“It was our pleasure,” Gabriel said, wrapping an arm around May. “I hope you will allow him to visit us again.”
I looked at Baltic. His lips thinned. I elbowed him.
“No,” he said.
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Ysolde, one day you will go too far. Must I remind you again that I am the wyvern, and you—”
“I am only the lowly mate, yes, I know, but as a wyvern, you must have some inkling of common good manners, so let’s see them.”
He pinned me back with a glare for a few seconds before squaring his shoulders and making one of those elegant bows that all the dragon males seemed to know how to make. “My mate and I thank you for taking care of our son during his visit.”
Gabriel, obviously fighting a smile, inclined his head politely. “We were happy to do so.”
“We’ll see you both tomorrow,” May said, waving as Baltic escorted me from the house. “Bye, Brom!”
“Tomorrow?” Baltic’s eyes were glittering with speculation as he held the car door open for me.
“What’s tomorrow?” Brom asked from the backseat.
“A meeting Baltic and I have to go to.”
“Oh, the weyr thing.” Brom promptly lost interest and spent much of the trip back home telling us about the many wonderful mummies and mummy-related items he saw, purchased, and planned to do. I was aware the entire time of Baltic’s ire regarding the meeting with the wyverns, but we both knew there was nothing he could do to get out of it.
“What did you and the silver mate discuss that was so important you had to leave me to be harangued by Gabriel?” Baltic asked when Brom ran out of steam.
“We summoned the First Dragon.”
His eyebrows rose. “Why?”
“Because I was tired of trying to figure out what he wanted me to do.”
“And what did he say?”
I slid him a quick glance. “He wants me to return Constantine’s honor.”
“He had no honor to return!” Baltic declared.
“I’m not debating his actions, simply telling you what the First Dragon said. He pulled May and me into another vision, this time of the events right after he had resurrected me. He said that death of the innocent had stripped honor from Constantine, and I was supposed to return it. But how I’m supposed to return honor to him when he is dead is beyond me. Do you have any suggestions?”
The look he gave me was unreadable. “Yes. Do not try.”
“The First Dragon asked me to do it, Baltic. I don’t think it’s going to be a good idea if I don’t at least try something.”
He shrugged, and changed the subject. “Why did you not tell me the meeting with the wyverns was tomorrow?”
“Why did you not tell me that Constantine is the First Dragon’s youngest son?” I countered.
“What does it matter to you who the First Dragon’s children were? They were all dead by the time Dauva was destroyed,” he said in typical dragon evasion.
“I give up even trying to have a conversation with you when you’re in this mood,” I said, irritated and yet at the same time sympathetic to his unwillingness to continue the subject. I knew the fact that he had been kicked out of his own sept and incurred the wrath of the First Dragon was a touchy subject with him, so rather than push the point, I simply told him that we would talk to the wyverns about the whole ridiculous weyr war.
“I have work I must do if I am to spend tomorrow in such folly,” he told me when we arrived home. “Later, once our son has gone to bed, you will do all those erotic things you have been thinking about doing to me.”
I glanced at him in utter surprise as Brom hauled his newly gotten swag to the basement, where he had a little lab. “How on earth did you know I was indulging in smutty thoughts about you?”
He smiled and pulled me against him. “I can always tell. Your eyes go liquid with desire, and your breathing increases. And you repeatedly shoot me speculative glances, as if you were formulating and discarding several plans. I suspect you have been indulging in more inventive fantasies about me.”
I bit his shoulder, reveling for a few moments in the scent and feel of him. “You love those fantasies, and I was doing no such thing.”
He squeezed my behind.
“Oh, all right, just a little one, but it only involved a chase scenario, so you can hardly call it inventive.”
“Chase?” His head rose from where he had been nibbling on my neck, a strange light in his velvety dark eyes.
“Kaawa said it was something dragons do.”
“It is.” He breathed deeply for a moment. “You used to leave me little notes, urging me to find where you had hidden. You were very good at hiding, but I could always find you. You wish to play this way again?”
“Perhaps,” I said, moving the chase scenario up to the top of my mental to-do list. I gave him a long look as I strolled toward the sitting room. “We shall see, shan’t we?”
A low rumble emerged from his chest, a strangely erotic sound that sent shivers down my arms. I left him standing in the hallway, making a mental note to ask Kaawa what other dragon games had been lost to my memory.
Chapter Ten
Thala returned unexpectedly from Paris that evening, seriously inhibiting my ability to tackle Baltic about the First Dragon, the upcoming meeting, or even how I was to go about finding information on the ouroboros dragons with whom Kostich’s granddaughter was involved.
“I’m not jealous, I’m not jealous,” I growled to myself as I stalked out of Baltic’s study, where he and Thala were bent over her laptop, going over the video she’d taken of Suffrage House.
“Why would you be jealous?” Brom asked, sitting on the stairs with a grubby notebook and an even grubbier bit of shed snakeskin.
“I wouldn’t. I’m not. It’s just that . . . oh, never mind.”
“I don’t like Thala,” Brom said as I sat down next to him. “She doesn’t like mummies. She told me I was a weird kid and to stay out of her way. And she’s always touching Baltic.”
I stared at him. “Touching him how?”
“You know, touching him,” he said with a shrug. “She touches his arm a lot, and earlier I saw her touch his face. If I was Baltic, I wouldn’t let her do that. It’s too icky.”
I gave him one of the three daily hugs he allowed me. “It’s not icky with the right person.”
“Yeah. You can touch my face if you really want to, but I won’t let anyone else do it. It’s time to unwrap the mole Pavel found a week ago in the back garden. You want to watch?”
“The thought of a mummified mole is not horribly high on my wish list, but I suppose I’ll survive it.”
“Geez, Sullivan,” he said with a roll of his eyes as he got to his feet and headed to the basement door. “You’re such a girl. It’s just a mole!”
“Hey, lots of girls like dead things!” I protested as I followed. “Just because I’m not one of them doesn’t mean anything. I’ll have you know that Baltic says he taught me how to use a sword and morning star, and that’s something you don’t see a lot of girls doing.”
We spent a pleasant hour together as Brom showed off his various mummification projects. While he explained his technique, I mused about how a boy with such a horrible biological father could turn out so bright and charming, if a little eccentric, but when he offered to show me the mole’s preserved innards, I decided enough quality time had been spent and went off to demand that Baltic do likewise for me.
“Half hour more, then bed,” I told Brom as I left.
He frowned. “Sullivan, I’m not a child.”
“Of course you’re not. Nine is perfectly ancient, but Nico is coming in the morning, and if you want to avoid being sent to the local school, you had better show Baltic and me that you will excel with a tutor, and that means bed at a reasonable hour. Got it?”
He rolled his eyes but nodded.
“Love you. Good night.” I trotted up the stairs, making yet another mental no
te to ask the tutor to concentrate a little more on biology, since Brom seemed to have a knack for things of that ilk.
“—not see that she is undermining your authority? Who is the one who decided that the child could visit the silver dragons? She did. Her ties to the silver sept run deep, Baltic, and it is to them she owes her true allegiance. She will betray you now as she tried to do in the—” Thala spun around when I entered Baltic’s library bearing a tray.
“Sorry to interrupt your little attempt at erroneous propaganda,” I said without a shred of truth. I set the tray down on Baltic’s desk, and laid out a couple of espresso cups and a carafe of coffee before smiling at him. “I needn’t ask if you believe that hogwash, since you know full well I would never do anything to betray you. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.”
“I’ve never doubted you,” he answered with a complacence that I knew would irritate Thala.
“Good. I thought you’d like a little dessert. You didn’t have time after dinner for the caramel-drenched chocolate hazelnut torte I made for you.”
Thala sneered as Baltic, who had an almost insatiable sweet tooth, looked with interest at the contents of the tray.
“Cake?” Thala dismissed the subject. “We have no time for cake!”
My smile grew as I held out a plate for Baltic. “There’s always time for cake. Especially cake with caramel. Baltic loves caramel, don’t you?”
“Ysolde enjoys cooking,” Baltic said around a mouthful of torte. “It pleases her to pretend I’m starving and must be fed several times a day.”
“I do nothing of the sort, and I’ve yet to see you turn down anything I give you.”
“I don’t wish to hurt your feelings,” he said, a blissful look stealing into his eyes as the torte melted in his mouth. “Did you make the caramel yourself?”
“Of course. I have extra. I thought we might enjoy it . . . later.”
“We really should make some decisions tonight,” Thala spoke over the top of me, tapping on the laptop.
“Mm-hmm,” he agreed, eyeing the second piece I had brought for Thala. “Do you want that?”
“Yes, I very much want to proceed—”
“No, the torte.”
She shot him an outraged look before getting a grip on her emotions. “No. I do not like sweets, as you know.”
“If Jim were here, it would give that zinger only a three-point-five. I’m sure you can do better if you really try,” I told her.
She pulled herself to her full height. “Do you have any idea of the power I wield, human? I am the daughter of Antonia von Endres, the greatest of all the mages. I can raise the dead and make them walk amongst us. I can harness the powers of both the dark and the arcane, and bend them to my will!”
“But can you turn demons into men? Can you harness the power of the banana? And have you ever had a foursome with yourself? Because I can and have, and if Baltic would just help me bring forth some appropriate memories, I will do so again!”
The man in question looked up from the two now-empty plates. “I do not understand your desire to indulge in sex with ourselves, mate. It is unnatural.”
“You go too far!” Thala snarled at me. “Leave us! We have important things to discuss.”
“Do not give my mate orders,” Baltic said, frowning at her.
“Then you make her leave!”
He glanced at the laptop, hesitating, obviously not wishing to ask me to leave but at the same time wanting to finish his discussion with Thala.
“Don’t worry, you don’t have to,” I told him with a little smile. I picked up the tray and the empty plates and headed for the door, pausing at it to sigh. “I guess if you don’t want the extra caramel I made, I will just have to enjoy it by myself.”
Baltic had leaned over the laptop to look at something, but at the obvious undertone in my voice, he shot bolt upright. I gave him a slow, wicked smile and went off to the kitchen.
By the time I had washed the plates and cups, warmed a small bowl of caramel, grabbed a new pastry brush, and made my way upstairs to our bedroom, Baltic was on the bed, naked, and anticipating my arrival.
“You will not need to see our past selves tonight,” he said as I set the bowl and brush down on the nightstand. “Is that warm?”
“Yes. How pissed is Thala?”
He shrugged. “She is annoyed, but that is of little matter. She understands that to me you must come first in all things.”
If I had been about to read him a lecture about his pushy lieutenant, his matter-of-fact statement melted any and all intentions.
I sat on the bed, watching him as he poked at the caramel with a finger. “It would be better cold.”
“You think so?” I asked.
He grinned, his black eyes glowing with a sensual light that never failed to send shivers down my back. “It’s harder to spread cold . . . and harder to lick off.”
“Yes, but warmed, it can be drizzled. See?” I dipped the pastry brush into the warm caramel, then traced an artistic caramel spiral all the way up his penis.
His eyes widened as I made a little curlicue on the top. “Drizzling can be good.”
“Oh, yes, drizzling can be very good,” I said, leaning down to lick the caramel off him.
His eyes crossed as his hips thrust upward. “I begin to think that perhaps there is more to your fantasies than I first imagined.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a good sense of imagination,” I mumbled, licking off the last of the caramel. “You know, this is going to make us very sticky. We’re going to need baths afterward.”
“We always need to bathe afterward,” Baltic answered with a little grimace.
I swirled the brush in the caramel, ignoring the hopeful look in his eyes to ask, “You don’t like to take a bath, do you?”
“No. Water is not our element.”
“Our what?”
He nudged the bowl. “It will cool if you don’t use it now.”
“What element? We have an element? Why do I like a long bath if it’s not our element?” I moved the bowl out of his reach.
He looked down his body, then at me. “My cock is not happy.”
“It’ll survive a few questions. I can warm up the caramel if necessary,” I added quickly, forestalling his next objection. “Explain to me about the element.”
“Always you wish to talk during lovemaking,” he said, looking aroused and disgruntled at the same time, no easy feat. “I do not understand why you cannot simply focus on me as you should, and leave the questions for another time.”
“Perhaps because I know you’ll brush off questions asked when I don’t have you naked and lustful and willing to do whatever it takes to get me to coat you with caramel and lick off every square inch.”
He pursed his lips, obviously thinking it over. “Very well. I will be magnanimous and just this once allow you to have your way, but no more, Ysolde. You have had your way too long. Our relationship will return to what is right and proper.”
I smiled to myself and stirred the caramel.
“All dragon septs have an element that is sympathetic to them. Water is the element of the green dragons; thus I do not enjoy it.”
“But I love to swim and take long baths, and I was a silver dragon before I met you and became a black dragon. Why do I like water?”
“You were reborn human with a dormant dragon side. Humans, I understand, like water.” He looked meaningfully at the bowl in my hands. “That will change once the dragon inside you awakens fully.”
“Hmm. What was the black dragon element?”
“Energy.”
“Ah.” I thought for a moment. “Like electricity?”
“No. It is more akin to the energy found in elemental magic.”
A little tickle of a memory flitted through my mind. I closed my eyes to better focus on it.
“Are you going to use that, or should I reheat it?” Baltic asked, nudging my hands again.
“One moment. I’m
thinking. There’s a memory just . . . Ah, got it.” I shivered as a sudden cool earthiness seeped into my pores. I opened my eyes to find that I was kneeling on a dirt floor, Baltic spread out naked next to me, an annoyed expression on his face.
“You just cannot leave the past in the past, can you?” he asked me, nodding toward something behind me.
I turned to see myself coming down a narrow stone passage, a small branch of candles in one hand, the flickering light from them casting eerie shadows on the rough-hewn stone walls.
“Here,” a male voice said.
I got to my feet as the other Baltic came into view, gesturing toward the wall.
“That’s stone,” the past me said, holding the candles high.
“It appears that way. I have hidden the door to the lair. You must learn how to access it, and how to use your power to hide it when needed.”
“What power? Dragon fire, you mean?”
“No, the power that fills all living things. It flows around us. Open yourself up to it and use it. No other dragons can do so but us. It is unique in the weyr. It is why our lairs are so hard to find—we use the power that only we can harness to hide them from other eyes.”
Behind me, Baltic sighed and got to his feet, brushing off his behind, pausing to cast a look of admiration at the old Ysolde as she examined the wall. “I always loved it when you wore nothing but a chemise.”
I stopped eyeing the past Baltic, clad in a pair of leather leggings and boots, to notice that the candles he now held made Ysolde’s form visible through the thin material of the chemise.
“You know, it’s really hard to be jealous of yourself, but if you keep ogling her, I may just manage it,” I told him.
He grinned. “You wish to bed me. The other me. Where is the difference?”
“I do not! I mean, I did wish to, and we did make love, but the present me doesn’t want the past you.” I glanced over to where the past Baltic was showing Ysolde how to open the hidden door. “Well, all right, I wouldn’t turn him down if he showed up in my bed, because he looks really sexy in those leggings.”
Baltic said something rude under his breath.